Good men have bad dreams

according to Jewish scripture.

They aren't signs of ill health (I flatter myself)

but a necessary safety valve;

in these pictures born of restraint

and repression is there a lesson

to be drawn, a symmetry to form -

might the dreams of bad men be good?

 

Let's suppose that they could:

forewarned is forearmed and cure

inferior to prevention; then by extension

early intervention's advised.

Imagine Sigmund Freud analysed

Adolf Hitler (when he was littler)

and discovered the  bugger

had a thing for his mother

but couldn't paint like Whistler -

his father was a bastard who battered

young Adolf in particular.

 

Sig couldn't help but notice - 

it's an obvious diagnosis

of Oedipal Complex;

the lad was rather self-obsessed

and circumspect concerning sex.

He'd reluctantly confess he was a flop

with the frauleins - two committed

suicide, another had a try.

 

All sufficiently unnerving but what Freud

finds most disturbing are the dreams.

Dreams of water, floating motionless

on oceans stretched to horizons

and beyond, a sense of lebensraum,

a vast purifying pond, a magic wand

launching golden showers

to cleanse and scour us.

 

A single figure in a liquid mirror;

Freud knows the flicker will glow and grow.

He lies on the couch, it's now or

it's Auschwitz. Would Sig pull the trigger?

A simple click, a bullet to the Id;

a Freudian slip we'd all forgive.